Todd Stroger's doomsday

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Chicago Tribune Editorial
February 28, 2008

You knew the threats were coming. They always do. Year after year, whenever the Cook County Board refuses to raise taxes, county officials sputter to the TV cameras that they'll have to interrupt services.

So it felt like old times Wednesday when allies of board President Todd Stroger began moaning the familiar dirge. "It's a sad day that [board members] didn't support these revenues," Finance Chairman John Daley lamented after an array of tax increase proposals were tabled or withdrawn for sheer lack of support. But the battle is young, and those proposals could resurface by Friday's deadline for a 2008 county budget

In the meantime, Stroger, Daley & Co. are making a great show of preparing for martyrdom. Daley even floated the possibility of a total county shutdown.

The big story here is that Stroger gambled everything and, so far, has lost. He wagered that he could ride out his unkept promises to reform county government. And he shot for a sales tax increase so huge that he wouldn't have to seek another tax hike until after he's up for re-election in 2010.

As of Wednesday night, though, Stroger's strategy lay in ruin. Not enough votes. Late in the evening, the board was debating the streamlining Stroger promised voters but refused to deliver. That process of weighing amendments to cut the budget produced sound and fury. But where that process leads by Friday's deadline is anybody's guess.

Board member Forrest Claypool spoke volumes Wednesday about the crisis Stroger's failures have created: "The board can't make Todd Stroger manage." If it could, Stroger already would have been forced to decimate the county patronage army, install cost-saving technology and surrender governance of his crony-laden Bureau of Health.

Instead, Stroger has rejected overture upon overture from board members who have suggested lists of ways to cut expenses, improve services -- and avoid tax hikes.

So he will get -- and will richly deserve -- full blame for any interruption of county services. If that interruption happens, it may well be Todd Stroger's doomsday. And how.